The Watchmaker (A Novelette)

By Anna Erishkigal

--Ask how you can win an hour in time—

Marae O’Conaire has much bigger problems than the fact her watch stopped at 3:57 p.m. When she brings her watch to a kindly repairman, she learns she has won a peculiar prize, a chance to re-live a single hour of her life. But Fate has strict rules about how one can go poking in the past, including the warning that she can’t do anything that would create a time-paradox. Can Marae make peace with the mistake she regrets most in this world?

'The Watchmaker' is a sweet, contemporary time-travel romance about second chances set in the historic mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts, complete with a walkable map of the downtown area canals. It is a complete, standalone novelette (53 pages) that is not connected to any series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seraphim Press
• Release date: Oct 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9780985489687

Anna Erishkigal

Anna Erishkigal is an attorney who writes fantasy fiction under a pen-name so her colleagues don't question whether her legal pleadings are fantasy fiction as well. Much of law, it turns out, -is- fantasy fiction. Lawyers just prefer to call it 'zealously representing your client.'.Seeing the dark underbelly of life makes for some interesting fictional characters. The kind you either want to incarcerate, or run home and write about. In fiction, you can fudge facts without worrying too much about the truth. In legal pleadings, if your client lies to you, you look stupid in front of the judge..At least in fiction, if a character becomes troublesome, you can always kill them off.

Book preview

THE WATCHMAKER

(A Novelette)

by

Anna Erishkigal

.

Copyright 2014

All Rights Reserved

Synopsis

—Ask how you can win an hour in time—

.

Marae O’Conaire has much bigger problems than the fact her watch stopped at 3:57 p.m. When she brings her watch to a kindly repairman, she learns she has won a peculiar prize, a chance to re-live a single hour of her life. But Fate has strict rules about poking into the past, including a warning that she can’t create a time-paradox. Can Marae make peace with the mistake she regrets most in this world?

.

What if you could do it over again?

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"A poignant short read around a theme from Norse mythology. Time is a gift, and sometimes, a last chance…" —Dale Amidei, author

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"A very moving and dramatic story… if we had a chance to change our past, would we?" —Reader review

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"Getting a do-over on your deepest regret is a one in a million opportunity!" —Reader review

Table of Contents

Synopsis

Table of Contents

Dedication

MAP: Marae's Journey

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

The Norns by H.L.M.

The Norns

Fun Facts

A Moment of your Time, Please…

Join my Reader Group

Preview: The Auction: A Romance

About the Author

Other Books

Copyright

Dedication

I dedicate this book to Uncle Hubert, a kind man who devoted his life to the maintenance of small, meaningful things. We are certain that heaven shall run smoothly with you there to oil the gears.

Marae's Journey

Chapter 1

The watch stopped at 3:57 p.m. on Wednesday, January the 29th. It was an ordinary day, filled with worries about whether I would make it to the library on the opposite side of the river in time to finish a term paper. There'd been no sense of loss or overwhelming dread, for I had lived with those two emotions my entire life, just a feeling that suddenly I had run out of time. I must have looked at that watch twenty more times before I'd realized the clock on the wall had moved into the future, but the watch on my wrist remained stuck at 3:57 p.m.

I stared out the windows as the bus bumped past the textile mills which rose above Boardinghouse Park like an enormous, red-brick citadel. A hunter green pavilion stood abandoned in a shroud of snow, delicate icicles glistening in the lattice like angel's tears. Josh had taken me there once to listen to a concert, one of the free ones, when it had still been warm enough to sit outside. I clutched my fist to my chest and forced myself to look out the opposite window, feigning interest so the wizened old Vietnamese man who sat across the aisle would not think I was staring at him.

The bus turned the corner, past a three-story row of boarding houses which looked out of place in a city now comprised of storefronts and office space. During the Industrial Revolution, a whole generation of women had abandoned their farms to work in the textile mills the same way young people today abandon their small towns to attend the university which straddles the rivers. Then, as now, there are jobs to be held in the massive brick buildings which line the canals, only these days the mills produce a warp and weft of the high-tech ilk: technology,